Where are the least best places to live in The Last Best Place?

Road Snacks did their yearly survey of the good, bad, and worse in Montana in September, 2023.  To be considered for any of their surveys, the towns had to have a population of 2,000 and up.

This is the methodology used by Road Snacks To Choose Montana's Worst Towns:

To figure out the worst places to live in Montana, we only needed to know what kinds of things people like and then decide what cities have the least amount of those things.

We don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that people like the following things:

• Good education
• Lots of jobs
• Low crime
• Low poverty
• Nice homes
• High incomes
• High population density (Lots of things to do)
• Short work commutes
• Health insurance

The data comes from the Census's most recent American Community Survey and the FBI Uniform Crime Report.

 

We broke crime down into violent crime and property crime to give violent crime a more significant weight. If you did a simple calculation of all crimes per capita, property crimes are typically 7x more common and bias that ranking.

These Are The 10 Worst Towns To Live In Montana In 2023:

10.  Glendive, Montana

Population: 4,928
Rank Last Year: 21 (Up 11)
Median Home Value: $160,000
Unemployment Rate: 4.8%

9.  Livingston, Montana

Population: 8,110
Rank Last Year: 7 (Down 2)
Median Home Value: $263,700
Unemployment Rate: 3.2%

8.  Wolf Point, Montana

Population: 2,638
Rank Last Year: 10 (Up 2)
Median Home Value: $105,400
Unemployment Rate: 18.5%

7.  Malta, Montana

Population: 2,031
Rank Last Year: 5 (Down 2)
Median Home Value: $136,300
Unemployment Rate: 4.5%

6.  Cut Bank, Montana

Population: 3,049
Rank Last Year: 17 (Up 11)
Median Home Value: $114,200
Unemployment Rate: 4.4%

5.  Columbia Falls, Montana

Population: 5,304
Rank Last Year: 11 (Up 6)
Median Home Value: $243,200
Unemployment Rate: 6.6%

Check Out The Most Affordable Cities In Montana

4.  Shelby, Montana

Population: 3,139
Rank Last Year: 4 (No Change)
Median Home Value: $168,400
Unemployment Rate: 1.5%

3.  Townsend, Montana

Population: 2,224
Rank Last Year: 3 (No Change)
Median Home Value: $170,600
Unemployment Rate: 10.0%

2.  Hardin, Montana

Population: 3,754
Rank Last Year: 2 (No Change)
Median Home Value: $124,900
Unemployment Rate: 9.4%

1. Polson, Montana

Population: 5,161
Rank Last Year: 1 (No Change)
Median Home Value: $217,700
Unemployment Rate: 4.6%

Check Out The Best Town To Live In Montana

Article taken from Road Snacks